Denim Duel: American Eagle Fumble vs. Gap Touchdown
By Kelli Luu | 25 Aug, 2025

American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney campaign triggered backlash while Gap’s KATSEYE campaign stole the spotlight and Gen Z denim sales.

In late July American Eagle released a new denim campaign featuring White Lotus actress Sydney Sweeney.  Within hours of the drop the brand scored a 10% stock surge.  That momentum didn’t last.

Instead, American Eagle began suffering a major backlash for the presumed double entrendre read into the slogan “Sydney Sweeney has Great Jeans”, with the homonym “genes” suspected of a racial subtext.  

It didn’t take long for the campaign to be compared to the controversial 1980s Calvin Klein campaign built around a 15-year-old Brooke Shields which had misfired with the scandalous tagline, "You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins?... Nothing".

Foot traffic in American Eagle stores dropped as critics accused the campaign of tone-deaf racial undertones even as other voices praised the ad.  President Trump posting on social media that “Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the HOTTEST ad out there”. 

I was a bit confused about the direction American Eagle took with this campaign. If the ad was aimed at Gen Z, why give us bombshell Sydney Sweeney whispering about her “great jeans” in such a seductive voice.  They should have known that Gen Z wants relatability and authenticity, not slow motion closeups of someone who pours perfectly into the classic Hollywood Anglo beauty standard.  

American Eagle defended itself with an online statement explaining that the campaign was always intended to be “about the jeans”.  That’s respectable, in my opinion. Rather than apologizing or trying to “fix” their ad, it stood its ground and stuck with the original vision. Honestly, it would have felt contrived if it had pivoted just to deflect criticism. 

While the dust was settling over American Eagle’s controversy, Gap swooped in with a well timed denim ad featuring girl group KATSEYE. That commercial was everything American Eagle’s was not.

 Gap gave us energy, dancing, and even Y2K nostalgia with the girls’ outfits and the song choice being Kelis’ 2003 single, “Milkshake”. But what made this campaign a real hit was casting KATSEYE. The girl group has been together since 2023 and includes members from the Philippines, South Korea, Switzerland, and the United States, each bringing their own personality and uniqueness to the stage. 

Seeing the girls together in denim, the animated choreography, the vibrant facial expressions was a cocktail that went down easy for Gen Z.  Gap aced the assignment, showing us that its denim is so comfortable that KATSEYE can dance in it.  The online feedback really sealed the deal. TikTok is blowing up with fans recreating the Gap x KATSEYE dance routine and others calling it one of the Gap’s best campaigns in years.

The contrast between the two campaigns was striking.  I am still unsure what American Eagle was going for.  Gap, on the other hand, stuck with positivity, joy, and inclusivity to steal the denim spotlight.  At the end of the day, both brands scored massive headlines across social media.  Only one danced away with the win.